A Little Infinity In The Present Tense
by AbruptLurid
Summary: If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.
1. Chapter 1

They'd been staring down at them for several minutes now. No words were spoken, no movements were made. They hadn't looked at each other once. They were just watching them as if what they were doing was the most fascinating thing on earth.

They watched the girl climb into her bed first. She curled up on her side, pulling an old t-shirt from underneath her pillow. She held the thing to her chest and inhaled the scent she was so desperate to smell again deeply, squeezing her eyes shut. Though, they knew she wasn't sleeping or was planning on going to sleep any time soon.

Not long after that, the guy went to bed too, collapsing on the bottom bunk. They'd watched him slip out of his clothes after he'd smoked a cigarette in the bathroom. He wasn't sleeping either.

Silently, the door of the girl's room opened. A dim light shone over the girl, and her mom peeked inside. Something she did every night, just to check if her daughter was still there. If she was okay for as far as she could be. She looked at her for a moment before closing the door again. She too, knew that she wasn't asleep.

In the darkness, a small form on the top bunk stirred underneath the covers. A guy leaned over the edge of the bed to look at his friend. His eyelids were closed, and the dark shadows underneath his eyes were clearly visible. Without saying a word, he laid back down and went back to sleep.

A few more minutes of silence later, Augustus lifted his head. Oceanic-blue spheres met emerald green hues. "That's Hazel." he said, flashing Alaska his crooked smile as he pointed with his index finger towards the girl. "I love her."

Alaska flashed him a warm smile before turning her face to look down again. She motioned with her head towards the guy on the bottom bunk. "That's Miles, but everyone calls him Pudge. He loves me and I love him, present tense."

Augustus bobbed his head in a few nods and fixated his gaze back on the girl. His elbows were resting on his knees, his hands clasped together. "They are having a hard time, aren't they?"

"Yeah, they are." Alaska answered quietly, her plumb lower lip curled between her pearly white teeth.

Furrowing his brows, Augustus remained silent for a moment.

"So, what's your story?" Alaska asked to break the silence. She inclined her head to the side as she studied Augustus' features.

"Cancer. Everywhere." he shrugged. "Yours?"

Alaska smiled. "Drunk. Car crash."

Augustus nodded before fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He flipped it open and put a cigarette between his lips.

Raising her eyebrows, Alaska blinked a couple of times. "You're not going to light it?"

"Nope," Augustus replied.

She was clearly confused. "Then why would you.." her voice trailed off.

The twitch of a smile etched at the corner of his mouth as he repeated the words he'd once used to explain it to Hazel. "It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

She laughed at that. "That's so much smarter than what I always said. When Pudge asked me I told him 'Y'all smoke to enjoy. I smoke to die.'"

A low chuckle passed Augustus' brims. "It feels good talking about them, doesn't it?"

"It does." Alaska said, glancing down at her feet. "Miles was always one to remember famous people their last words."

Augustus gave her a funny look and cocked an eyebrow.

"One of the last things he wrote for an essay was: Thomas Edison's last words were, 'It's very beautiful over there.' I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.'"

His lips curled into a grin as he looked at Alaska. "That are some great words. I think my favorite ones of Hazel were the ones she said on my pre-funeral.." Augustus took the cigarette from between his teeth and cleared his throat. "I am no mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. I wanted us to have more numbers than we got. But I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful." Alaska remained silent for so long that he wasn't sure if she'd heard him at all. Gently, he nudged her side with his elbow.

She blinked a couple of times before beaming at him. "That was beautiful. Now it's my turn again!" she stated and started thinking.

Augustus stared at her as he patiently waited for what she was going to come up with.

"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how amazing it will be, and imagining the future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present. Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But the only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Augustus nodded a few times. "Smart guy, that Pudge of yours."

Alaska rested her head on Augustus' shoulder and sighed. "I miss him."

He rested his head atop of hers, comfortingly rubbing the palm of his hand along the length of her spine as they both stared down at the world they had once belonged in. "I know. I miss her too."

Closing her eyes, Alaska muttered. "But we'll see them again. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, maybe not in five years, maybe not in sixty years.. We'll see them again. Because true love will triumph in the end - which may or may not be a lie, but if it is a lie, then it's the most beautiful lie we have."

Augustus nodded once in agreement. "We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken."

It wasn't going to be easy, but in the end, they would survive. Because they had to.


	2. Chapter 2

Six months after the love of my life died of osteosarcoma, my mother decided to send me to yet another support group, to supposedly 'help me cope with my grief.' Yeah, right. My grief didn't want to be coped with. It was staying right where it was. Because if I would forget about feeling sad, that would mean I would forget about him.

Okay. I'm going to try and talk about him without bursting into tears. His name was Augustus Waters. And you could say I loved him a whole lot. We were just two cancer kids, loving each other and 'living our best life today.'

Anyway, this support group wasn't too torturous. For one thing, it wasn't just for kids with cancer. This bunch was specifically for people who had lost a loved one. And another thing, it wasn't led by Patrick, the literally ball-less cancer survivor. No, this support group was led by my very own mother. She's secretly been training as a counselor for about two years now, and decided it was time to put her skills to use.

So, we arrived at the recreation centre, where the group was held. I settled myself in the corner, trying to pretend that I wasn't related to the leader. (It can kind of make things more awkward than they already are.) I adjusted Phillip, the machine that helps my crap lungs do their job, and sighed. I didn't want to be here.

As I sat, a teenaged guy walked into the room and sat down on the chair straight across from me. He was a lean and lanky guy with shaggy brown hair. He reminded me of my friend Isaac. Well, minus the whole 'blind because of eye cancer' thing. Our eyes met and then his quickly flitted away. Well, no wonder. It was cancer repulses. He saw my cannula, Phillip, and the general haze of illness that surrounded me and immediately backed away. Which made me kind of sad. He was the only other teenager I'd ever seen at this thing.

"Who'd you lose?" I wondered to myself.

"And how do you deal with it? How do you handle the fact that you'll never see them again?"

Slowly but surely, more people trickled in. There was Ms. Blackthorn, a young woman whose fiancé died while in service. And there was Mr. Wlliamson, who lost his only child in a car accident. And there were the Johnsons, who just had their third miscarriage.. Now do you see why I don't like coming here? The meeting started and my mom bustled over, sitting right at the top of the circle.

"Good morning everyone." she said cheerily.

"As you can see, we have a new person here today. I'd like to introduce you all to Miles Halter."

The guy from earlier glanced up quickly and gave us a half-hearted wave.

"Hi," he said quietly,

"I'm Miles. Um- I'm Indianapolis for a week, checking out colleges with some friends. I saw advertisements for this group and thought.. That it might be interesting."

My mom nodded thoughtfully, clasping her hands together.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" she asked gently.

Miles shook his head and we moved onto somebody else.

Halfway through the meeting, the group discussion stopped and we were supposed to go and find someone to talk to. So I took a deep breath (well, as deep as I can breathec crap lungs) and walked over to Miles, who was still sitting alone.

"Hi." I said,

He glanced up and motioned with his head to the chair beside him,

"Hey. Hazel, am I right?"

"Yes."

We fell into silence and I burst out with,

"Look, I'm sorry if this is really abrupt and rude or whatever, but I just feel compelled to ask, who did you lose? Because what's the point of coming to a support group for grief if you don't talk about who died?"

To my surprise, he was laughing.

"You certainly jump right into things, don't you?"

"I tend to not waste time in my life." I replied, shrugging.

"Well, since you asked, oh so politely, I'll tell you. My friend Alaska Young died in a car accident last year."

"Oh, do you want to talk about it?"

"You're not very good at this, are you?" he said with a smile, "But, yes I do. Alaska was this girl who once you met her, you'd never be the same again. She was so vivacious and full of life; a hurricane of a person. I don't really know how to describe it-"

"She was on a roller coaster that only went up." I murmured, almost to myself.

He looked impressed.

"Exactly. I take it that you know someone similar?"

I nodded and then corrected myself,

"Well, knew. I knew a guy who used to say that."

Miles quickly realized what I was trying to get across and took my hand.

"Well, he certainly would have gotten along with Alaska." he said, attempting to smile.

Things were wrapping up. Miles and I stood and he said,

"Well, it was really nice to meet you, Hazel."

"You too, Miles."

He nodded again and then turned, walking away. Suddenly, he whirled back around, as if on a whim.

"What where his last words?"

"What?" I tilted my head to the side, raising my brows.

"The guy - do you know what his last words were?"

"Um.. No."

"Find out. It helps."

I nodded and he left for good.

At home in my room that night, I glanced at my phone, debating with myself. Did I even want to know what Augustus' last words were? Would it hurt, or would it help in some way? Throwing caution to the wind, I grabbed the phone and called his mom.

"Hazel?" she said as she picked up at the third ring, unable to hide the surprised tone in her voice.

"Hello, Mrs. Waters."

"How are you? Are you alright?" she asked. I could almost hear her brows furrow from this end of the line.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I was just wondering.. Do you by any chance know what Gus' last words were?"

She remained silent for a moment as she thought to herself, and I waited patiently. "Hmm, let me think. He kept saying.. 'Okay.'"

''Thank you, Mrs. Waters. That was everything I needed to know.'' and with those words, I hung up.

* * *

**AN:** Hi thuuuur. Heh. So, credits for this chapter go to Irishchic1234. Basically I got the whole idea for this FanFiction because of her. I practically uploaded the same as she did for this chapter only with some small changes because it was very well-written and I felt like that was the way it should stay. (Yes, I do have her permission to use it) What else to say.. Oh! I bought a lot of new books recently, including Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines so I might write some one-shots about those... Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Love always,


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